Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

By Robert M. Pirsig

Description

Acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, this modern epic became an instant bestseller upon publication in 1974, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. This 25th Anniversary Quill Edition features a new introduction by the author; important typographical changes; and a Reader's Guide that includes discussion topics, an interview with the author, and letters and documents detailing how this extraordinary book came to be. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a touching and transcendent book of life.

Reviews

Read this again for the first time.

5

By Windsornewtonandjack

I attempted this gem of a book back in the 70's when I was in my 20's. I had no sense of real identity or purpose. I went through the actions to impress my girlfriend, got bogged down, and never finished. Thankfully, I resisted any temptation to read ahead to see what happens. I'm now in my early 60's, have succeeded at fatherhood (my son Alex is now 33, adequately happy and both financially and spiritually successful no thanks to me), and failed miserably at marriage. Somehow I am still married to Alex's mom and have come to a new understanding about what in life is of lasting importance. It took a 40 year struggle with alcoholism, anger, fear and resentment to arrive at a place I can only think of as heaven on Earth.
Enter ZATAOMM. So many things are moving me to tears these days and this enlightened journey across the Northwest on motorcycle with son in tow was no exception. A brilliant read.
Just when you think you might lose your mind navigating through the web of metaphysical, spiritual, philosophical enlightenment, the author draws you back to the well crafted descriptions of his travels across the Dakotas, Montana, and to the Pacific coastline so you can breathe again. Back and forth, up and down, side to side this work takes you in so many directions and forces so many emotional reactions that run the gamut. It truly is a work for all time.
gl

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

5

By EdCamV

A high Quality read 5/5

I thought it was a Quality book.

5

By Sisi Mack

That's all.

A Fascinating Read--Several, Actually

5

By wdchkgsqrl

I just reread Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM), forty years after the first time in college. It's a different book seen through the eyes of a 65-year-old man, particularly one who was a philosophy major, Methodist seminary graduate, licensed family therapist, and who practices Zen meditation. For me, ZMM was several books. Like many contemporary novels that constantly shift from scene to scene to keep our attention, ZMM shifts constantly—multiple times in most chapters—between a philosophical story and a psychological, interpersonal one. Much of its power derives from the fact that ZMM is based on Pirsig's own life. Others have well-summarized the “plot”, so I won't reiterate that.
1) ZMM is a philosophical novel. Pirsig was an English professor and teacher of Rhetoric, a blend of writing, persuasion and philosophical argument. The book recalls Pirsig's multi-year search to define Quality. Heavy on the Greek philosophers, Pirsig presents argument after argument, originating in a variety of settings, through a series of daily chautauquas, over the course of his motorcycle road trip with his young son in 1960's America. Pirsig is quite good at the metaphor/smilie game, relating many of his arguments to how one keeps a motorcycle running. The “Zen” part of the book is that the Quality Pirsig seeks to define is less a matter of “either-or” (rational vs romantic thinking) and more like something else, represented by Plato's Forms (eidos), or the Buddha's thinking. As a former philosophy major and a Zen meditator, this is familiar territory to me. My difficulty with ZMM was that Pirsig is a lot smarter than I and often left me in the dust of his arguments. Like a lot of brilliant people, he is also arrogant and convinced that his views are correct and nearly all others, stupid. Another reviewer of the book noted that non-philosophers are often awed by Pirsig's reasoning, while those who know a bit about philosophy are less so. Nonetheless, the philosophical part of this novel was a fun ride.
2) ZMM is also a psychological journey. Early on it become clear that Pirsig was quite obsessive. One of my Old Testament professors remarked that “Fundamentalism is less a theological position than a psychological problem.” Pirsig often exhibited something like fundamentalist zeal. As I read ZMM, I wondered if Pirsig's dogmatic certainties weren't as much a function of his psychological issues—his compulsive nature—as anything else. Over the course of the book, Pirsig related how his thinking became clearly obsessive , occupying his mind 18, 20, 22 hours per day, until he could no longer sleep. Pirsig crashes and burns, is diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, is hospitalized several years and receives shock treatments. He is open about all this, and about the damage it does to his relationships, particularly with his own son, Chris, his companion on this journey. A recurrent theme is Pirsig's fear that Chris' psychological makeup parallel's his own. A fascinating aspect of all this is the psychological distance that forms between the narrator Pirsig and his former self, whom he calls Phaedrus (also the name of a Platonic dialog). After hospitalization and treatment, Pirsig has forgotten a lot about Phaedrus, and the psychological track of ZMM recounts the slow recovery of Pirsig's memories about Phaedrus' earlier decline. As I followed Pirsig's no-holes-barred recounting of this decline, I often had the sense I was watching a slow-motion psychological and interpersonal train wreck.
ZMM is a difficult read, but an excellent one. Chris, whom I had grown to love in the book, was murdered some years after the book's publication, and ZMM's Afterword contains an interesting glimpse of how Pirsig's mind and psyche continued to evolve after ZMM was published.

Zen and the Art of...

5

By CSJR1989

A good story with important lessons.

Great book

2

By PriceItToSell

I have read this book twice, the last time 20 years ago, and wanted to make it my first iPad (electronic) read. But the price is prohibitive. I will just dust off the paperback and read it for the 3rd time. I will look for another classic which is priced to sell. This is a worthwhile read though.

Don't Forget It's Sequel

5

By stevenbrumley

Zen was good. It helped us understand the world in a different way than before.
But don't forget the sequel to this book. It was also written by Pirsig. A lot of people say it doesn't live up to ZAMM, but I actually like it more.
The book is: Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals
And for those that don't know, Chris is dead. Stabbed to death by an unknown person in San Francisco. I didn't personally know him, but I felt like I did thru ZAMM, and was stunned when I learned of this.

Awesome

5

By Moses H.

I read this book 174 years ago. Never gets old.

A timeless masterpiece

5

By Jens Offersen

This is my bible.

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

5

By Dr Roger the Lodger

Read this book 40 years ago & enjoyed it. Now having read it again I realised back then I didn't understand half of it and now enjoyed it much more. It's a story of madness and disconnection, sanity and love woven in and out to make an intriguing picture to be seen from quite different perspectives.